The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1887-01-01

tcenth-century English. Drydsn has
What. crowds Of patients the town doctor
Or how last fall he raised the weekly bills.
The word "sick," which the Amcri-
cans use where most of us use the word
"ill," had the meaning. they assign to
II in the days of Chahccr, of Shakes
peare. and Of Pope. Where we speak
of u person being plain, the Americans
would describe him as homcly-once
more retaining u perfectly classical
usage. In Milton's "Comus" we have
They had their name thence.
The verb ''to whittle" most people,
probably, would pronounce to be
newly-coined word; but it is not so.
johnson gives an example of its use
from "Hakewith on Providence. book
which was published in 1927. 1t is u
good word, having no equivalent in the
language, and those who have preserved
it have done wisely. The substantive
''whittle," sgnifying knife, is found
in Shakespeare ("Timon of Athens" v.
p, but seems to have died out not long
after. "Slick," again, we should ut
first sight imagine to be undoubtedly Of
Yankee manufacture; but we should be
quite wrong. Chapman GG03) describes
the god Apollo us "both slickc and
daintie," and later on in the century
we find the word used by Sir Thomas
Browne and Fuller. The former speaks
of slick stones-i. c.. smooth stones. A
familiar form of salutation which one
hears sometimes in the States. "How
dye" is not of native growth, but has
the sanction of no less II writer than
Pope. 'Years make men more talka-
| tive" he says. "but less writative: SO
that now write no letters but Of plain
business, or plain how dyes, to those
few | am forced to correspond with"
In the case of "cutch we have in one
and the same word an instance of the
legitimate preservation of bygone usage
and the understandable introduction of
novelty. When Americans use it in the
sense of "clever," '.sharp," they
can show that it was so employed in
the past; but when in the sense of "prct-
ty," they can do no such thing. Many
of the fair sex use the word with its lat
ter meaning to an cxasperating extent.
"Ain't he cutep" you will hear
a whole chorus exclaim as they gaze in
rapture on some baby; or. again,
"What cute little dresses!' Other ex-
amples of old words that would have
died out and been lost to the language
had they not been well cared for in
their new transatlantic home, might
easily be cited. "Freshet." truly de-
scribed by Archbishop Trench as an
exquisite word, is one of them; it is
used by Milton:
All fish from sea or shore,
Freshet or purling brook
Another is ''bluff." formerly. how
ever. used rs an adjective &c. g.. "a
bluff peninsular prominence'), where
as the Americans-followed by our own
Tennyson, Ground the hills from bluff
to bluff employ it as substantive;
Others are ''snag," word which we
meet in Spenser and Dryden; "rile,"
the same rs roll, an old verb signifying
to disturb, to vex, and found in
Chaucer.
The use of the formal "Sir" when
addressing stranger or person with
whom one has only II slight acquaint-
ance is another instance of the reten-
ton by the Americans of past modes OF
, speech. Good illustrations of this par.
ticular custom. rs it existed ut the time
that the New World was being colon.
lied. are found in the 'Compleai
Angler" whose author died in the ycal
in which Philadelphia was founded by
Penn. Such sentences rs the following
are constantly occurring: "Sir. l shall
by your favor bear you company as fal
as Theobald's;" "Sir, my fortune ha:
, answered my desires;" II am. sir, 4
| I. I, al,
1t is evident, then. that many so
called Americanisms 50 far from being
arbitrary novelties. have the cleares
right to be regarded rs English u,ide
filed. ."-PdW Mall Gazette.